Cameron's creative horses are like her real horses: she has to feed them first thing in the morning. Otherwise they will become restless. That's her morning pages.
My creative spark are Dobermen. They would rather run on the beach and surf, swim after tennis balls in the harbor, or catch frisbees in the park, than eat. They have always been happy to be fed twice daily, but only when nothing else is happening. Those are my day pages.
Don't believe what I am doing. What's come over me? GC has invited me into a group on the strength of AJ's recommendation. Is this to be AJ's last request/bequest? Why am I going to accept it? No questions asked? It's because I am now in the final act of my life's play; there will be no additional intermissions. I am pursuing my penultimate denouement and climax. Would I have done this two decades ago? Maybe. But now? Full speed ahead and no holds barred!
ReplyDeleteMy news in the last couple of days is that my bone scan and bone density scans turned up negative. In other words, everything on this parameter is AOK. I receive that today as especially good and salutary news. Because only Sunday, on Father's Day, I learned that Bill Evans is going deaf and blind. It provides no comfort to me to remember that he has had a good and long life, because his road ahead is what he now has to contend with. I wish I could think of a way to bring him some comfort.
ReplyDeleteThis is a threshold I am crossing this weekend. Offices are moving uptown into cramped quarters, less privacy, more commuting time and unpaid parking. Don't know how long I can last on these unholy, unfamiliar grounds. But status quo is status quo. Marginal status quo. And my parttime income affords me boat and me slip and that's a better than level trade-off. For the time being. Besides, giving up that micro-income might require me to give up my $2-a-week lotto habit. Then I would have to give up all hope of waiting for something better to come along.
ReplyDeleteSo the big gift was an I-Pad. I'm relieved. I was worried it was a round-trip air fare to London or someplace so I would see an EPL game. I don't know about this I-Pad! Is it a toy? I don't know what to make of it. But coming to me engraved, as it is, I better be busying myself about learning its finer point and uses. And, can my mate learn to use and benefit from it, too?
ReplyDeleteWhat's wrong with me? Whatever it is, has been wrong with me for a very long time.
ReplyDeleteI noticed it the first time when I was in college and thinking about my life's work. I thought - rather entertained the thought - that I would become a business man. What kind of business? Furniture sales? I would learn all possible things there were o learn about sofas and easy chairs. All the different makes, sizes, colors, weights and prices of sofas and easy chair.
I was repelled by that dismal image.
Perhaps my imagination wasn't broad enough. I could become a restaurateur. Sell food. Prepare food. Except I don't cook and I'm not peculiar about what I eat: I'm a feeder, not a diner.
Now, where am I fifty years after college? Eking out a semi-retirement life working in a company that sells clothing. Now, it's not my role here to design or market items. Nevertheless, I overhear people who do, and their shallowness appalls me: some colors are more in season than others; some fabrics are more chic and others less so; some are phased in and others are phased out.
Bull crap. Their work day lives are filled with such bull crap.
And yet, had I been willing to put up with selling stuff or services for five decades, I'd be rich enough to be fully retired by now. I would have a brain in my head, but I would be retired.
The real consolation is that I didn't "end up" the way my father predicted I would if I didn't study my algebgra: as a ditchdigger.
At a certain point in the aging process, one comes to the point of view that change everywhere is (a) not for the good and (b) not reversible, not worth the effort. That is what has happened to my political voice. (I have none.) All I can muster is defiant gestures. The other day I put up an anti-Obama image on another blog and quoted a few of his lines from yesteryear that he is now shamelessly walking on. In my desk drawer, I have an Obama bumper sticker with every intention of putting it on my bumper. I just bring myself to believe it belongs on the same bumper with my vintage Gore 2008 sticker. The other day Gore pasted Obama for his environmental record. (Why did he not broaden his criticism.)The news says that Bachmann and Romney are the front runners. They certainly are made for television. Any Republican is worse than Obama. But in the mix, what I do with my fucking Obama sticker will have zero effect.
ReplyDeleteI saw Dick at the supermarket Saturday. He's a guy who used to sail with us ten years ago. As a matter of fact, I used to depend on him. Back then I recall him as being good natured, quite old, quite conservative, quite set in his ways. As a matter of fact, he was irritating to talk to because you knew what he wanted to talk to you about, day trading on the stock market, and at length.
ReplyDeleteSo on Saturday,even though I was short on time, I said hello. Dick had aged considerably. He was very frail. I smelled like he had not used a laundry or a shower for some time. He was buying food by the can. He looked desperate and confused. The message he embodied was one has to be preemptive and proactive: solving little problems is the best way of avoiding big trouble. (Not sure I'm very good at that.)
When I said, "Hi Dick", he did not reply by saying "hi" in return and gave no indication he knew who I was, or that I was any different than who ever he had spoken to in the previous hour or day. He launched into a monologue as to what was bothering him about his hearing aids; that one had recently popped out of his ear while he was driving and that he had to stop and look for it for some time before locating it on the car floor. He offered to serve as a dealer for my hearing aids, and so it went. Same old' Dick.
He's always represented a kindred spirit for me. Ex-tennis player; ex-sailer. Another Ivy-League educated senior citizen living in poverty, steeped in pathos. I guess he's not been doing any better on the stock market than I am.
Expect the unexpected. I had the wrong address for my parking facility. I hope that is corrected by now. The procedure will not be confirmed until I try to leave. I have a nice short, reasonable, manageable walk from my car.
ReplyDeleteOf the three of us in this micro-office, I have the least privacy. For right now, I've arranged what objects I have, optimally. I see possible improvements, but they will have to wait until David checks in. Looking straight out the door of the office, I can see people approaching before they close in on our office. That's all for the good. But Danny can see my keyboard and keyboarding skills, if he's interested. That is not so cool. And my snoozing: not cool at all.
One thing is for sure. This setup is more social.
Play it day by day, eh? See what turns up?
On Wounded Knees:
ReplyDeleteI have guilt and shame. Almost too much to address. Dawg maybe crippled again, due to my laissez faire attitude of running on the beach. First, there was the beach and then there was the throwing of the sticks. And now, one of my $6,000 knees, her right one is unusable. My story is that her knee was okay as of Sunday morning when I pulled out of the driveway at 0900hrs but a crippled leg when I returned at 1100. She must have injured it jumping in or out of the back of my other parked car?
That's my story, but I can't stick to it, in all candor. Can't stick to it because I know that absent of symptoms, I would have continued to throw sticks to her in the water, recklessly. I can't throw them far enough into the water do risk those expensive knees, was my thought. I was resolved not to progressing to launching tennis balls over the surf.
If her knee is irrepairable, my loss is unpardonable. Gone is my companionship on walks. Gone are my illusions of being her loving and wise master. I have also let down my loving Trophy Wife. I have squandered the $12,000 investment the two of us made in both of Doberwoman's knees.
Doberwoman is not acting herself. I am convinced she is in hellish pain. She will not complain. Not in her nature. I need to get her to the vet so we can do what we can.
So my indictment can be measured out. Regardless, my shame, depression and guilt is beyond respite.
So so the craven one does not think much of my well-reasoned solution to CHRF boring program. First he applauds the discussion via email and meetings. Then he shit-cans my solution and says he will work on someone else's convoluted idea and have it finished next week? It's not only that he's thinking in the narrow confines of a small box. It's that it's him who's deciding again. Well fuck his meetings then. I have already made that point: if he's going to be the decider, then WTF is the point to attending meetings? I have put my ideas out to the group by group email. They have witnessed The Craven One's thinking process. I wonder if they are drawing the same conclusions? I wonder how many will attend next week? I'll have to ask around because I won't be there.
ReplyDeleteThe move up-town has not turned out to be an absolute disaster. Even as this initial week has had more than its share of tensions and stress over details such as desk location, neighboring workers, and parking, my optimism has been rewarded. Closer together, we are more social. I'm finding more commonalities with those I work with. Thanks to this move, my entire life's working experience is become marginally less monolithic.
ReplyDeleteDad, a mathematics professor, told me that if I didn't learn my trigonometry and calculus I would end up as a ditch digger. Well, I haven't done that gig yet and I'm still working. However, if Dad were alive today, he would point out that my undistinguished resume adds up to little more than digging a few ditches.
I am only now beginning to value feeling as well as thinking. I suffer from isolation, remain susceptible to my on going addictions and dysfunctions. I am afraid of intimacy, both with men and with women. Behind my brittle mask, I am often sad, lonely, frightened, angry, and ashamed without being consciouly aware of it. I've been trying to think my way through life. That's pushing a big bow wave. It's not working. Cramping, I crave to be stretching. I need to break down the hard parts of me and to grow more soft parts.
ReplyDeleteTW wants me to cruise to the islands one more time this year as a crew reward. I'm saying 'No' with emphasis.
ReplyDeleteI contrast myself with GC, who's roughly my age, if arguably in better shape judging from the barbells lying around on the floor of his pool house. GC is Mr. Cruiser. GC says he goes to Catalina once every other year: that's enough for him. Well, good on him. That's what he does. That's what he has done for the last decade or more.
But what happened to Mr. Cruiser on the 4th of July? Once he gets out of the harbor he discovers his engine only durns his prop when he's in reverse! That's not so slick. So he calls the Harbor patrol and they tow him back to his slip. Once there, all of a sudden the prop works in forward again! The message from GC's boat, is clear: stay home. What would have been engine room's message to GC's helm at night during a calm in the middle of the shipping channel? Who knows?
Any cruiser has got to be all over his engine like a horny lover. That's not me. An auxiliary is like a chaperone to my sailing: a necessary hindrance. Like GC, I may be a slave to my thing. I sail and race my boat. That's my thing. Every year, week in and week out, and that's enough for me.
In the middle of the night or early-early morning it came to me that I should barter with TW: I'll go with the crew to the islands one more time as a gift to her and the crew in return for putting PS up on the market. This deal had remarkable symmetry. A sense of great peace flowed through me. I felt I should offer it, as a last graceful and gracious way of saying thankful to the people (crew) and the gods who have so favored me on the water for the last half century or less. I felt excitement. As I fought my way back to sleep, the BBC came on with something about 'nostalgia never being better'. One last cruise to offer a final punctuation to my career of avoiding adventures? One last atypical adventure? This semiconscious resolution lasted until my feet hit the floor beside the bed and then my conscious reality struck me between my eyes: getting up each morning was adventure enough for me.
ReplyDeleteWhat if I took TW and myself off to our last Island junket? What if one of us fell and broke a limb? What if I died over there? How much would I stink up the boat for the rest of the crew on the way back? Those are the sums of all fears.
But surely yachtsmen have died on those Islands before. I'm sure the Coasties could airlift a broken limb or a corpse out from a dinghy. What's the harm of taking the risk.
Truth be told: I'm lazy. I don't like looking after details. Going to the islands, you're on your own. When you cruise you have to be perfect; when you race, you just have to be good enough.I don't want to get after electronics, fuel filters, anchor chains, hoses and the like.
But why not leave that up to the crew?
Maybe this is a deal than can be struck. A definitive listing of PS & a short few days on Santa Cruz as an informal culmination of a life of sailing together. Yeah. Maybe we need that. Maybe we need to risk that.
This morning, I sent the following email out to three of my sons with a cc to Son #4. The subject line read "T.M.I."
ReplyDeleteWith a great deal of trepidation I am trotting out my 3rd and final very private and very personal blog. Like the others, [SITE 31] and [SITE 3], this one -- [SITE #3] -- is intended for, and restricted to, family eyes only.
[Son #4] had been after me for years to tell my story and I am incredibly indebted to him: after I caved in and started this dreaded project, I have actually found the process to be rewarding. I never knew much about my old man. Unlike [Son #4], once I became an adult, I never asked my dad to tell me all the lies he could. I just didn't have the guts to ask and there just wasn't enough love, trust and time available.
[SITE #3] might not be deemed safe for minors. It is not complete, nor ready for prime time. But prime time is here already, ready or not.
Your email invitations will follow immediately upon this email.
Within minutes sons #1 & #3 had logged into the site. I have no inking as to their reactions, individually or collectively. Or for my reactions to their,s for that matter. It's quite possible I did not think this through throughly before tipping them off. There was no urgency, actually, except that, at my age, I could drop dead at any fucking moment. I can now expire with more ease knowing that I have done this deed. So, in one loving sense, their reactions be damned. Will more familiarity breed contempt? I don't know. But I do hope for more positive reactions than individual or collective damnation. Not that the mundane details my life in its entirety merits interruption of their more worthy and more immediate lives: I must prepare myself for no reaction at all:
"So?"
Or,
"This is a self-absorbed and incestuous act on your part! Why dump all of your shit on our heads?"
So, no response - encouraging or discouraging - is required or expected...
Time to resume these day pages. Should review them too.
ReplyDeleteStart on New Year's Resolutions? Same Ol', Same Ol':
ReplyDelete1. Lose weight.
2. Walk dawg every day.
3. Stop eating Haagendazs.
4. No butter on bread.
“We build on foundations we did not lay.
ReplyDeleteWe warm ourselves at fires we did not light.
We sit in the shade of trees we did not plant.
We drink from wells we did not dig.
We profit from persons we did not know.
We are ever bound in community."
Rev. Peter Raible (paraphrased from Deuteronomy 6:10-12)
So, when the shoe fits
ReplyDeleteThe foot is forgotten,
When the belt fits
The belly is forgotten,
When the heart is right
“For” and “against” are forgotten.
(Chuang Tzu)